


Like Candy from a Baby

by track_04



Category: Original Work
Genre: Food as a Metaphor for Love, Gangs, Gen, Halloween, Party, Post-Apocalypse, Very Mild Gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-06 19:19:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16393622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/track_04/pseuds/track_04
Summary: Nancy loved Halloween. Laurie did not, but she'd learned to put up with it. Mostly.





	Like Candy from a Baby

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Silex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silex/gifts).



"You're up early." Laurie stared blearily down at Nancy, who looked rosy-cheeked and far too cheerful for so early in the morning. Productive, too, judging by the row of plastic pumpkins lined up haphazardly on one side of her. In front of her, there was a pile of random junk and assorted knick-knacks; Laurie was too tired to give it much of her attention.

“I could say the same for you.” Nancy grabbed a screwdriver from the top of the pile, giving it a quick once-over before she tossed it into one of the pumpkins with a soft thunk. “Trouble sleeping?”

“Not really.” Laurie took a seat beside her, the concrete of the rooftop cold even through the denim of her pants. Nancy was suspiciously silent, waiting while Laurie splayed her legs out in front of her, careful not to knock any of the pumpkins over. "Did you even bother sleeping last night?"

"A few hours." Nancy shrugged and picked up a half-full mug that had been half-hidden behind the junk strewn around them and handed it to her. "Learned my lesson last year."

"I'll believe that when I see it." Laurie took a drink and grimaced, unable to decide which was worse, the coffee being lukewarm or its almost sickening sweetness. "You do know we have a limited supply of sugar, right?"

Nancy shrugged and turned to grin at her, the dark tangle of her hair framing her face and looking almost alive in the early morning light. "I always find more, don't I?"

"That's not the point."

"You worry too much." 

Laurie finished off the last of the coffee just to show that she could and handed the empty cup back to her. "Someone has to." 

“Yeah, but you don’t have to today. It’s a holiday. Let yourself relax a little.”

“Today is the least relaxing day of the entire year.”

“Oh, come on. It’s not _that_ bad. I know you like to be a complete and total grump about it, but just admit that it’s fun--”

“It’s really not.”

Nancy rolled her eyes and dropped a toothbrush with a jagged, broken handle into one of the pumpkins with a huff. “Fine, then. It’s a horrible day and you’re a saint for putting up with it. Truly, your life is suffering.”

“I’m glad you understand.”

Nancy laughed and bumped her shoulder against Nancy’s. “Can you at least enjoy that I’m enjoying it? Or just lie and pretend that you are.”

Laurie pursed her lips, fought off the urge to argue, then reluctantly leaned into Nancy's shoulder. She was already sick of the sight of those stupid plastic pumpkins, but Nancy was smiling that smile that Laurie really only ever got to see at this time of year, so she guessed it wasn’t all bad. "I guess. But I don't have to be happy about it."

"I didn't think you would be." Nancy motioned at the pile in front of her. "Feel free to help me sort."

Laurie sighed and reached out to grab the first thing within reach. "I hope you know I'm not wearing a costume this year."

"Uh huh." 

"I mean it this time."

"I'm sure you do.” 

Laurie scowled and chucked half a broken bottle into one of the pumpkins, satisfied with the crunch it made when it hit the bottom. “You know, I’m glad you like Halloween so much. At least that makes one of us.”

“I like it enough for both of us,” Nancy said, setting a coil of brightly colored wire carefully to one side.

Laurie didn’t see the point in trying to argue against something they both knew was true.

\--

Their friendship started with a half-melted Mars bar.

It was Laurie’s least favorite candy, the one thing that she’d never bothered to fight her brother or sister for when they dumped all their Halloween candy into a pile in the middle of the floor at the end of the night and divvied it up between the three of them--one piece for her sister, one piece for her brother, and one piece for Laurie. 

Her brother and sister always seemed to grab the other candy first, piling up the Reese’s and Snickers and Butterfingers until there was nothing but a scattering of sad-looking Mars bars on the carpet between them. When the last Twix had been snatched up, they’d turn to look expectantly at Laurie, waiting until she told them to just take them. She’d tried fighting with them about it a few times when she was little, but by the time she hit the first grade it didn’t seem worth the effort, so she stopped trying.

She didn’t argue when the nurse ushered them into the hall outside the room their parents were in and handed them a Mars bar from the pocket of her scrubs, either. Not even when she left them standing there, staring down at that candy bar and wondering what to do. 

Laurie watched as her brother opened the wrapper and broke off his share, stuffing it into his mouth whole, cheeks flushed and eyes dull. She looked away from him, staring at a dark stain on the far wall and listened to sounds that may or may not have been their parents dying somewhere on the other side of it. 

Her sister’s hand trembled as she took her share and then handed Laurie the wrapper with the remaining chocolate; she didn’t try to talk Laurie into giving it to her instead, and Laurie opened her mouth to argue, or maybe point out how wrong it was that neither of them had even tried to swindle her out of her candy share. Before she could get the words out, she caught sight of the familiar-looking red spot on the tip of one of her fingers and shut it again. It matched the ones that she’d first seen on their mother’s hands a little over a week ago, just before they’d all been loaded onto the bus that had brought them here.

Laurie took the candy that she didn’t want without protest, folding one end of the wrapper over it carefully and shoving it deep into her pocket. 

It was still there a week and a half later when she climbed under an empty bed to hide from the nurses who kept trying to shuffle her off into the room with all the other children that they had no idea what to do with. The crinkle of the wrapper as she settled into place made her freeze, afraid someone had heard her. She peered out from beneath the blanket draped over the edge of the bed to check, only to find that the room was still mostly empty, save for a few people in the final stages of the sickness who’d been left there to die.

She let the blanket drop back into place and settled into the shadows beneath the bed, glad to be alone. She was just starting to relax when someone cleared their throat, the sound not quite muffled enough to be coming from the room outside her hiding place.

Laurie whipped her head around, half-expecting to see someone with the sickness lying there, reaching for her with their oozing, sore-covered hands. 

Instead, she found a girl about her age with tangled hair and dark stains on the knees of her pants. Laurie huddled a polite distance away and stared at her warily, both of them waiting and watching and not daring to speak.

The girl looked a bit wild, like she was contemplating kicking Laurie out of the safety of their shared hiding place. Or crying. Possibly both, if given the chance.

Lost for what else to do, Laurie reached into her pocket and pulled out the half-melted remains of the candy bar. She peeled back the wrapper and held it out in silent offering, spots of chocolate staining her fingertips.

“Where’d you get that?” The girl asked, expression equal parts wonder and wariness.

“One of the nurses,” Laurie answered, her hand mostly steady as she continued to hold it up between them. “She gave it to me when my parents died.”

The girl frowned, shoulders relaxing just a little. “They didn’t give me anything when my parents died.”

Laurie shrugged. “They didn’t give me anything when my brother or sister died. I think they were out of chocolate by then.”

“Yeah. Maybe.” The girl hesitated a moment longer and then reached out, snatching the chocolate up between her fingers. She looked like she wanted to shove the entire piece into her mouth, but then thought better of it, breaking it in two and handing the smaller piece back to Laurie.

“It’s okay. I don’t like this kind,” Laurie said, waving her off.

“It might be the only chocolate that’s left.” 

Laurie wrinkled her nose. “Gross. I hope not.”

The girl laughed, a bit too loud for the quiet around them, and they both froze, listening for any sign that someone had heard them. When all they heard were the moans and mumbling of the dying, they both relaxed, the girl offering Laurie the remaining piece of candy bar one more time. Laurie made a face and the girl shrugged and ate it, taking the time to lick the chocolate from her fingertips. 

“So what kind of chocolate _do_ you like?”

Laurie thought about it. “Crunch bars.”

“Really? Those are so boring.” The girl pushed her hair out of her face and scooted close enough that their knees touched. “I take back what I said earlier. There probably is more chocolate. I bet there’s a pile of Crunch bars somewhere that no one wanted.”

Laurie stared at her, unblinking. “Well, if there are and I find them, I’m not going to share them with you.” 

The girl stared back, the corners of her mouth curling upward into a smile. “What’s your name?”

“Laurie.” She didn’t bother to smile back at her. The girl didn’t seem to mind. 

The girl nodded at her and didn’t hold out her hand. “I’m Nancy.”

Laurie nodded back. She could hear someone outside their hiding place gasping loudly for air, and she knew they were dying.

Nancy moved closer, pressing their shoulders together, and said in a voice just loud enough to drown out the sounds, “You wanna play a game?”

“Only if I get to pick it,” Laurie said, pressing her shoulder into Nancy’s.

\--

The other girls were already up when they got downstairs, lounging around on their beat up sofa and the assortment of mismatched chairs scattered around the main room.

Nancy paused in the doorway and took it all in, something almost manic in her stare when she turned back to look at Laurie. She grinned, not saying anything or waiting for any comments that Laurie might have wanted to make, and walked over behind the bar. She slapped her hands down against the countertop, the sound they made enough to get everyone’s attention. “Morning, ladies.”

“Morning, Nancy,” a few of the more zealous (and awake) girls answered while the rest of them muttered and grunted with varied levels of enthusiasm and clutched their coffee mugs against their chests.

“As you all know, today is Halloween. And Halloween is a very special day around here.” That got a slightly more enthusiastic reply, at least, a few of the girls sitting up a bit taller in their chairs. “And tonight is going to be the best Halloween we’ve had yet.”

“You say that every year,” Laurie said, earning a few scattered snickers from around the room.

“Yeah, but this year it’s true. Right, girls?”

The responses were more enthusiastic this time, a girl somewhere to Laurie’s right even going so far as to let out a soft whoop of approval.

Nancy threw Laurie a knowing look from across the room and clapped her hands together in front of her. “Right. So, who wants to know what the winner takes home this year?”

There was another whoop of approval and the other girls laughed. Laurie rolled her eyes, but found herself joining in in spite of herself.

Nancy waited until the laughter died down and then reached under the bar, pulling a full, unopened bag of sugar out and setting it on the countertop. The paper of the bag was white, almost pristine-looking, the faint blue lettering still crisp and new-looking. Around the room, girls set their coffee cups aside and leaned forward in their chairs, faces taking on that look of ruthless excitement that they all got at this time of year.

Laurie locked eyes with Nancy, expression disapproving, and shook her head.

Nancy ignored her and waved her hand at the rest of the gang. “So, supplies are up on the roof, first come, first serve, just like always. Grab your pumpkins and then come back and work on your costumes. Team assignments go out this afternoon. You know the drill.” 

The girls scrambled to their feet and toward the ladder at the back of the room, overturning chairs and knocking a few mugs to the floor in their haste.

Laurie waited until they’d all cleared out before she walked over to the bar, resting her arms against it and staring down at the bag of sugar. “You couldn’t offer them coffee or cans of soup or something that we aren’t always running low on?”

Nancy looked slightly offended. “No, because giving them something they have everyday is boring. Where’s your Halloween spirit?”

“In bed, getting all the sleep that I missed out on while I was helping you with your stupid pumpkins.” Laurie sighed. “I hope that isn’t the last of our sugar.”

“Like I’d give away our last bag of sugar. I’m festive, not stupid,” Nancy said and winked. “Now, about your costume--”

Laurie groaned.

\--

Laurie heard the soft rap on the window and sat up, stealing a cautious look at her roommate’s sleeping form before she climbed out of bed. She opened the window as quietly as she could manage and reached out to help Nancy inside, shutting it as soon as she was inside the room and hoping that the brief burst of cold air wouldn’t wake up her roommate.

She held a finger up to her mouth and climbed under her bed, knowing without stopping to look that Nancy was following close behind. It was a tighter squeeze than it used to be, their limbs longer and the beds smaller than they’d been back in quarantine. 

When they were as comfortable as they were going to get, Laurie gave Nancy a questioning look.

Nancy stared back at her silently, her expression intense and thoughtful. It was enough to make Laurie start to fidget.

“You’re gonna be in for it if they catch you out of your room past curfew.” Laurie glanced at Nancy’s forearm, the lack of light making the four thick, black lines inked into her skin look like the ragged edges of claw marks. “You don’t want to get another one, do you? You know what happens when you get five--”

“I know. And I’ve been thinking.” Nancy turned her arm over so neither of them could see the lines. “It’s going to happen, sooner or later, whether I do something to earn it or not. So, I’m not going to give them the chance.”

Laurie could hear the frantic rhythm of her own heartbeat in her ears. “What do you mean?”

“I’m leaving.”

Laurie stared at her blankly. “But there’s nowhere to go.”

“Of course there is. There’s a whole world out there.”

“Yeah, and it’s dead. There’s no food or electricity or _anything_.” Laurie’s voice rose, sounding scared and angry in a way she hadn’t let herself be for a long time, and she forced herself to stop and take a breath. “And if you leave, they’ll never let you back in again.”

“What if they’re just telling us that to keep us here? They lied when people started getting sick, then they lied to us in quarantine, so why wouldn’t they be lying to us here, too? ”

“But what if they’re not? If it’s really like they say it is out there, you’ll die.”

“It’s not like I’d really be losing much.” 

Laurie stared silently at Nancy and tried to think of a way to convince her to stay.

“I stashed a few bags of supplies down by the south section of the wall a few days ago, and I’ve been watching the guards.” Nancy seemed to take Laurie’s silence as encouragement and leaned in, her voice and expression growing more animated with each word she spoke. “They only patrol that area once every hour, so if we leave now and time things just right, no one will even know we’re leaving.”

Laurie blinked. “You want me to come with you?”

“Yeah, of course.” Nancy stared at her like she was an idiot. Which was probably an accurate assessment. “You didn’t think I was going to just leave you here, did you?”

“No, of course not.” Laurie shook her head and didn’t quite meet Nancy’s eyes. “If you’re wrong about all of this and we die, I’m going to haunt you forever.”

“That still sounds better than staying here.” Nancy grinned. “But I’m not wrong. Trust me.”

\--

“Amelia and Carol? Really?” Laurie stood in the doorway to their back room and glared at Nancy. She had just enough time to make out a few flashes of color and what might have been streamers before Nancy rushed over and pushed her outside, shutting the door firmly behind them.

“No peeking! You’ll spoil the surprise.”

Laurie stared at her. “You put me on a team with Amelia and Carol?”

“Yeah, I thought they could use the help.” 

“Well, yeah. It’s Carol’s first time at this and Amelia is...Amelia. They’re going to need nothing but help.”

Nancy arched an eyebrow. “Why does it matter? I thought you hated all this and thought it was a waste of time.”

“I do.” Laurie crossed her arms over her chest and turned her head to stare at the wall. “I just don’t want to spend my night babysitting them.”

“Liar. You actually want to win, don’t you?” Nancy nudged Laurie in the shoulder, her mouth curling into a grin. “Admit it, you secretly love Halloween and you’ve been waiting all year for this. I bet you even love your costume.”

“I definitely don’t love my costume,” Laurie said and scowled.

Nancy gave Laurie’s grubby coveralls and the faded rubber mask that she had clutched in her hand a once over. “You might if you put more effort in.”

“Whatever.” Laurie gave her a scathing look and turned away, heading down the hall toward the small closet where Amelia spent most of her time attending to the thing she was keeping as a pet. 

“Good luck!” Nancy called after her.

Laurie flipped her off over her shoulder, and the sound of Nancy’s laughter followed her as she walked away.

\--

“This is it.” Nancy stood on the cracked asphalt, weeds growing up through the cracks around her feet, and stared up at the building in triumph.

Laurie stood beside her, staring at the large front window and the dirty brick walls, and frowned. “You’re not serious.”

Nancy’s smile faltered for a moment in the face of Laurie’s skepticism, but she covered it over with a broader smile and a wave of her hands. “Why wouldn’t I be? This place is perfect.”

“But it’s not even a house.” Laurie gestured to the round green sign above the door, the woman’s face on it smiling blankly down at them. It felt almost mocking. “Where would we sleep?”

“We’ll find sleeping bags somewhere. Or cots. We could probably even fit real mattresses in there if we wanted to.” Nancy grabbed Laurie’s arm and started to drag her towards the door. “Let’s at least just have a look. It’s gotta be less creepy than sleeping in someone’s old house with all their family pictures and stuff. Besides, half the houses around here are full of bodies. Who wants to go through all the effort of cleaning that up?”

Laurie dug her feet in, stopping them both on the sidewalk. “And how do you know this place isn’t full of bodies?”

“Because no one went to a coffee shop to die.” Nancy rolled her eyes and gave Laurie’s arm a squeeze. “And no one would want to live in one either, right? It’s the perfect hiding spot. Nobody’s going to look for us here.”

“Because it’s a stupid place to live.” Laurie stared up at the smiling woman on the sign and tried to ignore the hopeful look that Nancy was giving her. She remembered sitting in the back seat of a car with a pink marker and an empty cup her mom had given her, tracing the shape of that smile. “Fine, we can look.”

Nancy grinned. “This is going to be great.”

\--

Laurie crouched behind the rotting remains of someone’s back fence, the cold from the mud seeping through the knees of her coveralls, and thought about how much she hated Halloween.

Beside her, Amelia muttered something. Laurie glanced over just in time to see her pluck something fat and wriggling from the dirt and tuck it into one of the pockets of her jacket. The suit she was wearing was obviously made for a man and hung awkwardly on her frame, swallowing her up, making it look like the dark cloth was trying to swallow her whole; when she leaned forward into the shadows, it almost looked like there was no one inside it at all.

Laurie stared in the general direction of Amelia’s pocket, lost somewhere in those folds of fabric, and frowned. “You sure you want to carry that around all night?”

Amelia shrugged and the dark fabric shifted awkwardly around her, like it was fighting the gesture. “He’ll be hungry when we get back. Besides, it’s Halloween. I think he deserves a treat.”

“Gross,” Carol said from Amelia’s other side. 

“He has to eat.”

“Sure, your not totally imaginary pet needs to eat.” 

“He’s not imaginary. And it’s not like you’ve got any room to talk--”

Laurie cut them off with a sharp gesture of her hand and nodded her head toward the crumbling road on the other side of the fence. “You can fight later. Remember what we came here to do.”

They both nodded, Amelia looking slightly sheepish. She couldn’t make out Carol’s expression behind her mask, the warped red and white plastic hiding her face from view, so she told herself that Carol was probably feeling just as bad as Amelia and turned her attention back to the road.

The minutes ticked by and the sky grew darker with no signs of life from anyone but the three of them. Laurie started to wonder if they’d managed to pick the one entirely dead stretch of road in the area and was about to tell the girls to pack it in when a man dressed in the grey, unadorned uniform that the City made its patrols wear appeared around a bend in the road. He walked toward them, oblivious, his stride self-assured and his hands shoved deep into his pockets, like he was out for a leisurely stroll instead of patrolling a hostile area.

Laurie took a moment to arch an eyebrow at Amelia, who looked equally baffled by his boldness. Carol made a soft sound that might have been excitement, just low enough that the man couldn’t hear it, and Laurie wondered if he wasn’t as new at patrolling as Carol was to this. 

Not that it really mattered either way. They should have known better than to send someone who didn’t know what they were doing out alone on Halloween.

Laurie gestured for both girls to stay low and silent and kept watch on the road through a crack in the fence, tracking the man’s progress. He was at least a dozen feet closer than he had been before and approaching at a good pace, still oblivious. When he was close enough that Laurie could almost make out his face, he started whistling a tune, the sound high-pitched and slightly off tempo. 

Any pity that she might have felt for him fell away at the sound of that whistling. She pulled her mask down to cover her face and reached for the knife in her pocket. She listened to his footsteps, watching him grow closer, and counted down silently in her head.

When her count hit zero, the man’s whistling cut off abruptly, morphing into a scream as their trap snapped shut around his leg with a familiar snap of bone and the wet sound of flesh splitting. 

Amelia and Carol stared at him through the crack in the fence, unmoving, until Laurie held up her knife and pointed at the top of the fence. She launched herself over it, trusting that they’d follow, and hoped this wasn’t an indication of how their night was going to go. She really didn’t think she could put up with any more whistling.

\--

“The back's empty.” Laurie shifted the bag on her shoulder and climbed over the remains of a broken shelf, bits of brightly colored plastic crunching beneath her boots. “You find anything?”

“Soup,” Nancy said, motioning absently at a stack of cans piled on the floor near her feet. 

Laurie bent to pick one up, inspecting the label. “Well, Sally should be happy to have something besides noodles to eat.”

“Yeah,” Nancy said, sounding distracted. She turned to face Laurie, holding up a bright orange plastic pumpkin with a thick black handle. “You remember these?”

Laurie glanced up at it, then she set her bag on the floor and started loading the cans of soup inside. “Yeah, I used to have one and it sucked. You could barely fit any candy in it.”

“Well, yeah. But my parents brought an extra bag with them and I just dumped everything in there when it got full.” 

“My parents didn’t really come out with us.” Laurie tucked the last can of soup into her bag and eyed the shelves around her for anything Nancy might have missed. They were mostly empty, save for a row of pumpkins identical to the one Nancy was still holding, a few creepy-looking plastic dolls, and an assortment of bright colored paper cups. Nothing edible or useful. “We should check next door before we head back. Regan’s been eating so much lately that I doubt a few cans of soup will last us for very long.”

“Yeah.” Nancy motioned to the row of pumpkins. “We should take these, too.”

Laurie stood and slung her bag back over her shoulder, frowning. “Why would we do that?”

“If that calendar that you’ve been keeping is right, it’s almost Halloween. We could celebrate.” Nancy waved the pumpkin in the air in front of Laurie’s face. “Dress up in costumes, go Trick-or-Treating. You know, like we used to. Before.”

Laurie pushed the pumpkin down, out of her line of sight. “I highly doubt it would be anything like before. Nobody’s going to just give us candy. Or anything else, for that matter.”

“Then we’ll just have to take what we want.” Nancy had that look in her eye that said she wasn’t going to let this go. “Come on, it’ll be fun. And it’s not like it’s just us anymore. We need to keep the other girls entertained if we want them to stick around.”

“I’m pretty sure they’ll stick around as long as we provide them with food and electricity and protection from other gangs.”

“Yeah, but this way, they’ll be more enthusiastic about it. And we’ll all have an excuse to have a party afterwards.”

“We don’t need to have a party.”

Nancy rolled her eyes. “Of course we don’t _need_ to. But that doesn’t mean we don’t want to. And when’s the last time we did something purely for fun?”

“Probably some time before the world ended.”

“Exactly.”

Laurie sighed. “Can we at least check next door for more food before we have to carry all of your stupid pumpkins back with us?”

“Sure,” Nancy said, setting the pumpkin back on the shelf and throwing an arm around her shoulder. “We’re going to need refreshments for the party.”

Laurie adjusted her grip on her bag and gave Nancy a long-suffering look.

\--

“You really went all out this year, didn’t you?” Laurie stopped beside one of the store room shelves, dusty and edged with rust, and stared at the strings of white lights and the tacky paper decorations hung haphazardly around the room.

“I thought it would be nice to be more festive,” Nancy said and leaned against one of the shelves, hands shoved in her pockets. There was a fine mist of blood splattered across one of her cheeks; from across the room, the drops of blood looked almost like freckles.

“It looks--”

Nancy arched an eyebrow. “Creepy?”

Laurie stared at a cut out of a jack o’ lantern. Its smile had probably been cheerful at some point, long before water damage had made the paper it was printed on warp and bubble, turning the edges of its mouth down into a grimace. “Yeah, creepy works.”

“Thanks.”

Laurie rolled her eyes. The other girls started to trickle into the room behind her, laughing and jostling each other, the faded plastic pumpkins that they carried swaying slightly with the weight of their contents.

“Wow, you really went out of your way this year.” Sidney stopped a few feet in the doorway and gave the room an assessing look. A few of the other girls were clustered behind her, peering around her at the decorations and looking vaguely impressed. 

Sally rested her chin on Sidney’s shoulder and somehow managed a whistle behind the warped, half-melted plastic of her mask. “Yeah, boss. Even better than last year.”

“Gotta keep it exciting,” Nancy said, pushing off the shelf and moving toward the makeshift altar in the middle of the room. It was nothing but a rickety old table covered in a dusty curtain and scattered with shiny bits of plastic, but the glow from the lights around them transformed it, made it look almost sinister. The bag of sugar was sitting in the middle of it, the bright white of it looking almost out of place.

Laurie moved to one side of the room, crossing her arms over her chest and trying not to look too impressed with Nancy’s efforts.

Nancy leaned against the edge of the table, careful not to make it wobble, and grinned. “So, girls, let’s see what you got this year.”

The rattle the plastic pumpkins made as they were emptied out onto the table reminded Laurie of Halloweens spent with her brother and sister as a child, back when things were almost normal. She could still feel the cool slickness of the linoleum beneath her knees as they knelt on the kitchen floor, still in their paper-thin store bought costumes, and dumped their bags out into a pile between the three of them. There was always that moment of pride, seeing that mountain of shiny wrappers and knowing it was theirs; the trinkets that the girls dumped out onto the table were bloodstained and dirty, some of them half-broken from the struggle to obtain them, but looking at them gave her a similar surge of pride.

Nancy reached out, picking up a strangely-shaped bit from the top of the pile and turning it this way and that in the light. 

It took a moment before Laurie caught the telltale flash and realized that there was a gold tooth buried beneath the half-dried blood now staining Nancy’s fingertips. She looked around the half-circle of girls gathered around them and caught Julia’s self-satisfied smirk.

“That one must have hurt,” Nancy said, winking at her as she set it aside, then reached down to take the next-nearest item from the pile.

Laurie watched as she made her way through the gory bits and baubles that the gang had brought in this year, a few of them genuinely surprising. Even Carol had managed to bring in a silver ring, only slightly scuffed from the struggle the owner had made as she cut his finger free to get to it. It wasn’t as impressive as some of the things in that pile, but Laurie didn’t think it was bad for a first effort.

When the sorting was done and the winning team had absconded to the roof with their new bag of sugar, Nancy came to stand beside Laurie and slung an arm across her shoulder. She looked happy. “Certainly beats a bunch of mini-candy bars, doesn’t it?” 

Laurie shrugged and hoped no one except Nancy noticed her fleeting smile. “I’d still take the chocolate, too.”

“Yeah, where’s our chocolate?” Sidney shouted somewhere from the back of the room.

Nancy laughed and shouted back, “No chocolate, but I did get you some booze. Go check under the bar!”

A round of cheers went around the room at that, followed by the stomping of feet as several girls ran out of the room in search of the promised booze. Another girls broke off from the remaining group and crossed the room; there was a soft click and then music started playing--some bubble gum pop song that Laurie vaguely remembered liking when she was a child--and that seemed to be the signal that everyone need to start moving freely around the room. 

Some moved to admire the decorations, excitedly sharing slightly embellished stories about their evening’s adventures. Others decided that they’d had enough of waiting for booze to be brought to them and wandered out of the room to find their own. A few even gathered in the far corner of the room, where the strands of twinkling lights shone brightest, to dance.

Laurie stayed where she was, Nancy’s arm still around her shoulder, and stared down at the pile of macabre treasures spread out on the table in front of them. “I still hate Halloween, you know.”

“Sure you do,” Nancy said, sounding cheerfully unconvinced. She waited a few minutes, until the other girls were fully absorbed in what they were doing, and then pulled something in a familiar blue and white wrapper out of her pocket and slipped it into Laurie’s hand. 

Laurie looked down at “CRUNCH” written across it in bright red capital letters and then up at Nancy, unable to keep the disbelief out of her voice. “Where’d you find this?”

“That’s a secret. In case I need to go back and get more to bribe you with in the future.” 

“I’ll just have to tail you and figure it out for myself, then.” 

“I’d like to see you try.” Nancy laughed and tightened her arm around her shoulders.

Laurie rolled her eyes and opened the wrapper slowly, carefully breaking the chocolate in two. It was too soft from being in Nancy’s pocket to give a satisfying snap, but Laurie still enjoyed watching it crack in half beneath her fingertips. While she was still busy staring at it, Nancy reached down and snatched up the bigger half for herself. 

“Oh, come on!”

“What?” Nancy said and took a bite, the mouthful of chocolate making her innocent expression less than convincing. “It’s tradition.” 

Laurie sighed and rolled her eyes, but this time she didn’t try to hide her smile. “Yeah, I guess it is.”


End file.
